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So if you follow us on social media you see a lot of changes we are going through as a business. For one I keep saying WE – yes we- I have a dear friend Michelle Russo who is flying copilot right now with BethKaya and the new venture – Self Care Cafe. She’s a beautiful soul, if you’re a friend of BethKaya, you know her by now but I will just formally say she is helping me keep my head above water. Along with several other players, you know who you are, and your time is coming. Thank you to everyone again and again for donating and supporting our self care mission!

We leased a space in Brick NJ and it’s adorable, the issues we are having getting into the space however, not so adorable. That’s an entirely different post and for all things considered, let’s keep the tone happy.

I just did a late season restock on some new soaps, scent sizes, crystal parcels and orgone pieces. As I have money invested into the store front – I simply need your support. Things I’ve been sitting on are going to need to get uploaded and move out! So stay tuned to the etsy shop and keep checking back. It will take time for us to get into the space and we need the online business to have the same level of dedication if not more to be able to keep this dream floating.

We are signed on to vend the Asbury Indian Summer Bazaar on Sunday Sept 24! I will be releasing more info about that in a little while but for now mark your calenders, it’s my birthday weekend btw so you simply can’t miss it! Not to mention tons of amazing vendors in the hottest spot on the jersey shore!

Additionally – the lovely Zoe Wilder has written a beautiful article about us again and it landed in Magnetic Magazine! Check it out here!

Also I know it’s late notice but it’s not too late to learn about this exciting spoken word movement called VERBATIM. Tomorrow evening I will be reading some poetry along with some wonderful features and following that will be an open mic. I would love to hear your words too! Here is more info! Please come!

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My friends in Georgia all have kids starting school this week. Let’s hold onto what is left.

Sidenote : If you are local and want to come to a little underground spoken word movement we are starting – sign up for info here:

Sign up to get details about SPEAKEASY poetry events

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By submitting this form, you are granting: BethKaya, 515 Drum Point Rd, Brick, New Jersey, 08723, United States, http://www.bethkaya.etsy.com permission to email you. You may unsubscribe via the link found at the bottom of every email. (See our Email Privacy Policy for details.) Emails are serviced by Constant Contact.

Hey you good lookin! ⚡️

Now That I have spammed you up enough, and I hope you’ve written all that down – I am gonna jet and stay tuned for more info. Thanks for reading!

Spring has sprung! My shop is open and flowing. I am slow and going, but moving! Some changes – ship time will be a little slower, please understand I take a lot of time on each package and personalize every one. This isn’t an overnight thing, especially with some welcome volume!

Less green fragrances, nothing new for this season in that department, just old favorites people love. This collection is aimed at people who are sensitive to chemicals and also essential oils. With that, I have designed SO MANY essential oil aromatherapy blends and am releasing them little by little to share with you.

New Beeswax Candles and Some Hand Picked Specimes also! *If you are looking for essential Oil diffuser equipment, message me on etsy!

www.bethkaya.etsy.com

Check the shop out to see and read about some of the aromatherapy new players!

Sometimes I get to really only check in once a season, having omnipresence on social media might make that excusable. I took a several month FB Hiatus to sort my head out a bit after ingesting this heavy news about needing surgery. So the ball is finally rolling and I have about 5 weeks left to stay open prior to all that going down. I anticipate being closed for about 2 months afterwards. I just don’t truly know. I will try to have essentials stocked up for you to stock up on in my absence, primarily Miracle Moringa and Faithful Shea Soaps. Those are my customers staples so I’ll do my best. I ask for your support right now .

Here is a preview of whats on the bill for the shop right now and through the coming weeks.

Biggest baddest version of my Moringa Miracle Bar to date up and live just for the holidays. ✨This soap sells out fast so grab it while it’s there / 4.6 oz

MOONBUTTER – pure organic avocado butter infused with Frankincense & Tangerine Oils married by Carnelian Energy. This butter was developed to rub on the stomach during times of lunar discomfort, but can also be used on breasts and hips as a ultra emollient protectant balm. Frankincense is particularly useful for those with tumors or endometrial discomfort. Developed for myself, offered to you in ❤️ SELLS OUT FAST

✨GARNET – Crystal infused 100% Natural Lipgloss.

Sold out Before I could Write about It My 96 year old grandpa asked me to make him a man soap. Can’t say no to Grandpa. This soap scent I’ll just label STEEL – it’s aquatic, masculine and fresh. Paired with an Amazonite core , Himalayan salt, and bronze dust abstracting with Activated Charcoal.

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Personal Smudge Kit

#lepidolite ..the finer things mood pills are made of ⚡️#nofilter

⚡️Signature

Orgone

Keep me posted on what you want to see go up in the shop before I close for a while. Thank you always for your love and supports.

That fireplace scent has crept into the general atmosphere. As those shifts happen, shifts in design, musical desires and creativity occur. It’s time to shed for the long winter of idea brewing and hibernation. Here are some of the latest lovlies to be had in my creative shop of musings. Reminder that I am only open for sales Friday am – Monday pm.

✨Selenite, Vintage Mugs and Salt Rocks with Wooden Wicks and Vegan Musings in the Key of Cherry Tobacco Mint or Lemon Herbal Mint

Special unisex fragrance release appropriately named for lunar activity BLACK MOON. This hue is rooted in cedarwood and and married to Egyptian Musk with a citrus finish. This is a rich scent infused with moonstone, black Jasper and red sandalwood. Limited offering just for the season – BLACK MOON,

There are winds that blow
Through lush corridors of gardens
That smell of old yesterdays
Battle fields, cook outs , hide and seek spots
And then the Silence after the intrusion of a prop plane and abandoned car alarm
Some soft moments
Or pillows in the sky take us somewhere
Somewhere we’ve been before
In our minds, our energy signatures
And the salty spray of a dawn evening
With the sensation it brings you
An understanding you felt
Is every bit of the potion to the paradox
That we are old, young and aging
Decaying
Racing towards the next something
Yearning sometimes
To know what it is
Become what we are
Live in the meaning
And those scents that poke the back of your neck and remind you of a place you once sat or an old lovers neck
Those messages in a bottle
Serve as an understanding
Of the ephemeral body
And memory
The present
And our choices
The bridges we cross
Those smells
The ones we burn
Those smells
And the ones we orbit for a time
And a time again
Long enough to smell something
Something familiar
Longing
Lasting
Imprinted
To be recalled on
When a creaking door leads you in
And the dust of an old book gives way to that ink and paper bound smell

This blog has never really had a solid goal or direction. I’ve owned this domain for over 14 years its just been my spot in space. In the last 3 years I have been interacting heavily on INSTAGRAM (IG). @BETHKAYA

IG gave me an incredible tool to communicate with. It became something I loved. I made buckets of new friends, connected with clients all over the world and explored beautiful photography techniques that would help my art become a viable business and voice of my own. This felt like the renaissance. I was getting a lot of traffic from every share. Every share amounted to sales, and brands were connecting with me to collaborate. It totally had it’s underbelly. Copy Catters and other various bits of undesirable natural social hiccups but I have sang the platforms praises, till now.

In the last 9 months or so, I noticed something alarming. I am organically sitting with 20 thousand + blessed subscribers. However, I am only engaging with less then 1% of them. When my following was at less than 10K I was garnering about 300 engagements per photo, this has been steadily and cyclically slashed. Now at 20 k I am engaging around 100. Also , I LOVED giving shout outs. I love tagging my friends and other makers in photos. Now when I do so, my photos are blocked and sometimes just removed. What happened?

I stare at my shop analytics and see the writing on the wall. The traffic to etsy is not coming from etsy (Thanks Etsy?) its coming from Instagram and a shred from google alla this site. Sales are remarkably down. They are still trickling from previous clients. I am sure grateful for these relationships I took time to foster. New clients? Very slim. This is panic mode as a business owner. I can’t stand quiet about it either.

I thought about class action lawsuits on the grounds of interfering with my ability to conduct business. I have over 100 friends who are feeling the algorithmic throttle from Instagram too. Did they have a task force come and hunt us down and sell us to the spam people who email me 3 X a week asking if I need more likes on my photos? Probably. Did haters mark my posts as spam or report me? A fraction, Probably. Did facebook decide that in order for me to reach my audience I need to boost through their marketing console on my facebook business page? Totally! Ultimately I can’t help but think there is a liability waiver for all of these thoughts built into their terms and conditions. I mean – who really knows what we sign away every time we agree to another app? Right? I can assume I have no leg to stand on. I can assume that once again the small business red tape grows wider then we were led to believe because social media “lessened that”.

So here I am, cut off from you. I’m not gonna lie – it hurts in more ways I can begin to describe. I watched a video of (KATWISE) another indie roots artist, who’s work I know from the music scene. In her video she was crying because of the very thing I am typing about. Being cut off from you, who we love, who supports our art, keeps food on the table and the lights on in our homes. For some artists, its not just a hobby – we price on formulas for fair market so we can compete in a healthy thriving arena. We sell wholesale, things we’ve made our selves. We are around the world with our businesses. We are up at all hours, fighting with the post office or packing things with absolute labors of love. Somehow that community gets that we to need lift each other up. We get each other and want to see others fullfill their passions and make a living at it if possible.

I know by now IG has seen the dozens of petitions, the #keepitchronological campaigns and more. I know Instagram robots have seen the 20+ letters I’ve written begging for throttle to my waiting audience to be lifted.

What else can I do?

This?

I was just a kid with a dream once too. A 16 year old on her own set out for NYC to be a working artist some day. I worked for the machine and clawed through design school at night. Instagram gave me a present, a way to express, UNDILUTED and in the most authentic way possible. People took to that, organically – and you took those people.

I know, I know, it’s just a platform. Wake up and live real life right? I know. All the haters, hate on me for being a cry baby. I will take that too. It’s just a space in time – things change, roll with the punches, sink or swim right?

I’m not going down either – I will keep sharing even if it’s to limited eyes. Those eyes matter!

This is about the art and what message is left behind when all it becomes is cosmic debris. The content I make comes from something that has nothing to do with this, and I admit I got too wrapped up in it’s power. This is a great equalizer. I won’t compare myself to those who haven’t been targeted by these shifts or who have garnered insane audiences doing things that well, have different merits then I would invest in. “Followers” are not the things to be preoccupied with. Relationships are. You can pan for gold in a gold field and still just find one little golden piece, but gold is gold.

Anyway, I just had to get that it out. This was an uppercut to my ability to do a lot of things growth wise that I had projected this year but I am just taking a detour and more real world roads this time. Thankfully, people still exist. That’s the medicine. Don’t put all your business eggs in one basket, and businesses found ways to survive when the climate changed.

Strikes and Gutters-

XO

Beth

*Edited to ad a side rant about Etsy, what is going on with etsy?

Apart from not getting any traffic or sales from their strip mall, they are using bots to deactivate listings based on algorithms too. 3 times in the last week my listings have been deactivated for no reason in my eyes. I spoke intensively with the “integrity” team as well. In order to garner traffic from etsy, you have to promote your own listings on top of the listing fee AND the check out commission? Where does it end? Stop nickle and diming! Stop bullying the little guy, who has done nothing but bring YOU traffic and revenue. Sheesh!

Getting back into the swing of things, the thick of winter – new structure for the shop. Slowly healing, getting myself back – taking it in stride and pulling all of my newest lessons into view.

Keeping loyal friends, and honest – well makers in my own healing & vitality arsenal. Producing now on a farm to table like scale – every few weeks I am writing a menu of sorts – assessing my herbs and flowers / raw materials and designing these ritual bath hues for you and myself really.

I’ve enjoyed partaking in all of this season’s products as they are developed and truthfully need these nourishment tools. There is nothing in a day that you do solely for yourself but your grooming rituals.

Sometimes those rituals can be the difference between “put together” and “falling apart”. A simple shower in the middle of a crisis, after trauma or whatever can sew a person up – make you anew, almost like a sunrise.

I cling to those moments somedays. Feeling so much, being able to lose myself in a silly little ritual of applying eyeliner or blush. It reboots.

Holding sacred space and crushing external and internal expectations has been paramount to the healing and creative process for me as a person. Especially lately – what things do you do to reboot yourself and set aside a sactuary?

A lot of my work if you haven’t gathered is centered around these sacred space and self ritual functions. My goal is to make them nourishing and enhanced.

Speaking of enhanced, if you are one of my Portland Oregon friends, please check out my Cannabis Flower & Fig Scents found at FARMA a beautiful luxury recreational and medicinal cannabis boutique. Those hues are unisex and a customer and now FARMA PDX favorite!

Feel free to comment before with your thoughts! Approaching 20K subscriber on Instagram – I think that is just silly and wonderful. Thank you so much whoever is out there for the support.

When I do hit 20K I will be giving this orgone and gemstone parcel away to a lucky following who has shared it with the hashtag #BethKaya20K.

Follow me at @bethkaya on instagram and also @butterflywellnessbeth

Facebook – BethKaya / The Butterfly Wellness Project

#BethKaya20K – Orgone & Gem Parcel Giftback for 20K Subscribers

I would love to hear about some of the events you have on tap too this coming spring /summer. Starting to map out my travel / vending routes!

Crystal Infused Lifestyle Art

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11 hours agoby BethKaya Sometimes I think about my thoughts and what I want, then I write them down and bundle them into crystals and wax. They become reality then. These are for the heart and throat // the basis for clear communications and expressed intents. Heart is hurting lately. I'll put it in my throats and speak a wish, light a flame and release a prayer ⚡️